Shrouded
by macrauchenia
Summary: In an unsteady voice, much too high to be professional, the reporter announced the fate of the plane, John's plane. "Flight 693 has gone down somewhere in the Eifel Mountains." - After Sherlock loses his only friend to a very suspicious accident, he is barely left with any time to mourn, when suddenly Moriarty is back with his fatal cat-and-mouse games. - Pre-Fall & No Slash -
1. Prologue

**Timeframe/Info About This Fic: **Pre-Fall  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own Sherlock BBC. This is purely for fun.  
**Authors Note: **My first multi-chap Sherlock fic :D (And I have to conclude that after seeing _The Hobbit,_ Martin Freeman is the most adorable thing to ever exist. Oh, and I could totally hear Benedict's throaty growl as the Necro, even though all we saw of him was a shadow D:)

* * *

**Prologue**

"Are you not going to pack?" John grunted as he dragged a large case from his room. He learned it against the fireplace brick, turning back around to face a blank Sherlock, idly plucking at his violin strings. John cleared his throat noisily and stepped directly in front of Sherlock.

"Are you not going to pack?" John repeated in a much louder voice. "Because, if you think that I'm going to pack yo—"

"I'm not going with you."

"Last time I tried to pack for you, I forgot one of your blood pathogen samples—how on earth was I supposed to know about _those—_and you said the case was ruined because of me—wait, what? You _aren't _going?"

"I am going—just not with you."

John blinked once. "Not with me…? You can't tell me that you're planning on taking a cab across the Chunnel."

"I'm taking the flight tomorrow to Ghent. After borrowing some of Mycroft's notes—"

"Borrowing?"

"Please, John, don't interrupt with your moral compass. After borrowing some of Mycroft's notes, I found that the key suspect in our case is going to be on my new flight tomorrow to Belgium. Surely not for a winter getaway—no, more likely he's going to try to warn his boss that we're onto to him." Sherlock squinted, pursing his lips together in thought. "Why else would an _innocent_ man want to leave the country and travel to a city fifteen minutes from crime lord Jom Martyrise's last known whereabouts. Clearly he isn't going to celebrate the festival—which was finished months ago. Aside from sightseeing, which he could do in any city in Belgium, why else would a reformed criminal want to go to Ghent. Really, John. I feel like I'm repeating myself now."

The former army doctor frowned slightly. "I could have reached the same conclusion," after a doubtful look from Sherlock, he added a sheepish "eventually." John glanced back at the suitcase next to him. "But why did you have to reschedule your flight? Couldn't we have just, I don't know, waited for him at the airport?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Wouldn't have worked. I need to question him without him knowing who I am."

There was a beat of silence. "Do _you_ know who you are?" John's eyebrows sunk incredulously. He blinked twice, unsure if he heard correctly.

Sherlock looked at him oddly. "What a funny question. Tell me, John. What is going through your ordinary mind at this moment?" He peered at his roommate curiously.

John rolled his eyes despite himself. "I _mean_, people know you're Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting_ detective._ How are you going to question this suspect, if he knows who you are?"

"I'm not going to be me, and you aren't going to be there." After seeing the blank look on John's face, he hastily added "Let me explain. If I'm disguised as something neutral, something mundane—a secretary! Yes, a secretary." Off on his own tangent, Sherlock stared to tick off reasons on his fingers. "A secretary has a relatively neutral job with no firm attachments to the law or with rival gangs. He or she may also know from classified sources where Mr. Martyrise's man might be able to find a few extra jobs once his employment is through." John looked skeptical, but he didn't interrupt. "Luckily our man is relatively new to London. He would only recognize me if you were also there, since that's all that's been in the tabloids." Sherlock wrinkled his nose slightly. "If he suspects that I'm who he thinks I am, his suspicions will be soothed when he discovers that a Mr. Sherlock Holmes and a Doctor John Watson have already taken a flight to Ghent a day before him."

John sighed loudly. "I see you've already thought this through, yet you always neglect to tell me until the last moment." Sherlock shrugged, turning back to his violin. After a pause, John glanced at his phone and gave a small start. "My flight leaves in an hour!" He bent over, hefted his suitcase with a slight grunt, and wobbled towards the door. He stopped at the door, glancing over again at his flatmate.

"Aren't you going to wish me a safe flight?"

Sherlock frowned, looking slightly confused. "Why would it not be a safe flight? And how would _wishing_ make it any better."

John rolled his eyes one last time, wondering when Mycroft was going to ship him his invitation to be knighted for putting up with his brother for so long. "You're right. I'll just, uh, see you in Ghent." He settled for a shrug of the shoulder as a wave, but it was missed by Sherlock, who was distractedly tuning his violin.

Sherlock was vaguely aware of John leaving. Downstairs, he could hear John murmuring goodbye to Mrs. Hudson.

"Thank you again for the sandwiches, Mrs. Hudson. I'm sure they'll be better than the food on the airplane."

"It was no problem." Sherlock could envision his landlady smiling broadly. "I hope you have a safe flight, dear."

"At least _someone_ is hoping everything will be fine." John kept talking, but he fell out of range for Sherlock to hear, and the detective surely wasn't going to get up to hear what else was being said.

Lost in thought, Sherlock absently plucked an ill tuned cord. It slammed against the neck of the violin with a shrill, flat snap, causing a slight shudder to run up the normally composed man's spine.

_Why would it not be a safe flight?_

* * *

No thanks to a good deal of nagging from Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock finally began to pack. It was a demeaning task for someone of his intelligence—after all, John always had packed for the both of them—and had Mrs. Hudson not been peering over his shoulder not unlike a hawk the entire time, it was very likely Sherlock would have forgotten something obviously important to ordinary people, such as his toothbrush or extra undergarments. After being constantly assaulted with various forms of _"Oh, dear, you don't _really_ need those, do you?" _and _"Sherlock, dear, they may detain you if you bring along _that._"_, Sherlock finally dragged his suitcase of investigation gear to the bottom of the apartment to be sent to Ghent ahead of him. For once deciding to deem his landlady's words as wise, the detective decided not to take his evidence samples of a rudimentary bomb on the plane with him, instead sending it by a reliable express delivery service to where he and John would be staying.

Mrs. Hudson was trailing behind him, chattering incessantly about the last time she had visited Belgium quite a few years ago. Sherlock tuned her out, instead scouring the busy London streets for his man, who would pick up his stuff and take it directly through the Chunnel. Unfortunately, it was raining, and since Sherlock did not really prefer the cold drizzle, he quick dragged his stuff into the sandwich shop adjacent to his flat, and sat down at the very first table he saw. Mrs. Hudson, who sat on the opposite side, continued her merry ramblings until she cut off suddenly with a deep frown. Smiling and cheery people throughout the café also stopped their pointless conversions, their expressions turning solemn.

The sharp difference between the gentle buzz of the sandwich shop and the new stifling silence was almost painful. Sherlock's eyes darted to the worried face of Mrs. Hudson, taking note that her gaze was elevated, as was everyone else's. Sherlock, whose back was turned to the suspended television sets, twisted his back to see what had sobered an entire shop.

_"Flight 693, which departed from London at approximately 12:00 o'clock this afternoon, has strayed significantly from its course to Ghent, Belgium. Due for landing at the Ghent Airport fifteen minute ago, instead the flight has traveled an extra two hundred kilometers past Ghent and into Germany."_

Mrs. Hudson's slightly quavering voice rose high above the stern newscaster's report. "Isn't that John's flight? On the telly?" Sherlock's eyes were glued to the screen; he was unable to tear them from the box in fear of missing some crucial detail as to John's current situation.

_"Officials have been unable to communicate with the pilots onboard Flight 693. Either the plane has been hijacked, or something has gone very wrong. The flight has been spotted and is in a steep decline," _the reporter read off with a slowly slipping a beat of horrible silence and a frantic shuffling of papers, he added with a pained grimace that _"the flight has now gone over three hundred kilometers past its scheduled landing." _

Beside the sweating newsman was a large map of north-western Europe with a tiny plane rapidly scooting further away from a starred Ghent. Sherlock grimaced as he took note of the renegade plane's new course. It was heading steadily towards the Eifel mountain range of Germany. Quickly heights and widths of the individual mountains flashed through the detective's mind. Alone, none of the mountains stood particularly tall, but to a sinking plane, they were incredibly dangerous. It was unlikely that John's flight would make it over the sharp mountains and rolling hills.

Without even noticing his body's takeover of control, Sherlock felt himself rise closer to the telly. He almost expected Mrs. Hudson to yell at him to move, but then he realized the woman's head was probably bent in frantic prayer. His light eyes darted across the screen, trying to fight off the rising bile in his throat and the ice coursing through his veins. He was barely aware when the news anchor stopped talking, noticing with a slight start that the man's mouth had stopped moving as he listened, frozen in place, to the incoming message. The world around Sherlock was deathly silent, and the only thing he was conscious off was the whispering murmurs of _"oh, God…"_ and the slight buzz from the static on the television screen. _John is on that flight, _was repeated continuously through Sherlock's mind, each repetition of the mantra causing a deep pain that felt like knives slicing through emotions he was unsure he had ever possessed.

After what felt like an eternity, the reporter's face went ashen. In an unsteady voice, much too high to be professional, the reporter announced the fate of the plane, _John's _plane.

_"Flight 693 has gone down somewhere in the Eifel Mountains." _There was a suddenly explosion as the helpless civilians in the sandwich shop each grasped the terrible reality. One woman started sobbing, blubbering about how her nephew was going to Ghent for the weekend, but she had forgotten which flight he was on. Mrs. Hudson started to sniffle behind Sherlock, murmuring the word "_John" _every so often. Others viewed the report with varying shades of confusion to sorrow, some still too far in shock to grasp the situation.

A nearby bystander could have considered the world's only consulting detective as one of the latter people. Instead of lashing out in anger or simply breaking down, Sherlock just stood there, eyes desperately absorbing everything on the buzzing screen. The giant seemed to be neither aware of his body's slight tremble, nor of his labored breathing, echoing loudly in his ears. He was hoping, so deeply that it hurt, that this was all a misunderstanding and that—_oh, God, John, please don't be dead._

After a lifetime had passed, and the news did not change its coverage, Sherlock slowly accepted the truth with an icy certainty. John was dead and had Sherlock not have been so determined to beat a case, he too would have been dead.

Moving faster than he had ever moved before in his life, Sherlock was out of the sandwich shop, leaving behind a crying Mrs. Hudson, a gray faced news reporter, a nearly hysteric woman, and a downed flight. He burst into the wet drizzle of London, the rest of the city blissfully unaware of the recent tragedy, but quickly turned and darted back to the entrance door to his apartment. Climbing three steps at a time to get to his silent flat, Sherlock rushed inside, slamming the door behind him.

He refused to let the world outside see his weakness.

* * *

**Err...so sorry to those who have read my previous Sherlock fic. But unlike that one, this one still has the potential to have a relatively not depressing ending. (**_And yet, my attempts to be cheery have only made this less_ _happy...)_  
**Thank you for reading! Hopefully you'll want to stick with this :D**


	2. Chapter 1

**Timeframe/Info About This Fic: **Pre-Fall  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own Sherlock BBC. This is purely for fun.  
**Authors Note: **Err, I advise you all not to listen to the Sherlock soundtrack at 1:40 in the morning. It'll only bring you pain. Hopefully you enjoy this chapter :D

* * *

For almost three weeks, Sherlock was nowhere to be found.

He didn't _truly_ disappear. About a week after the plane crash, Mycroft's best men finally tracked him down. But for once, Sherlock's older brother decided to not intervene in his baby brother's life, and instead let Sherlock lick his wounds in peace. It was a thing he knew Sherlock did when faced with large-scale, personal tragedies, and it was best just to leave him be. However, that didn't stop Mycroft from investigating himself as to why the flight strayed so far from course and then went down. After all, he too had lost a friend in the crash.

It was a bit unnerving, though, when the assigned agent to the case wound up missing, only to be found several days later at the bottom of a small lake. Someone clearly wanted the matter of the crash to stay closed—and something clearly wasn't accidental about the plane's demise.

* * *

Naturally, if someone took a mad dash to the Eifel Mountains in Germany, ill prepared and in the middle of winter, it was only expected that they would come down with something. Even the most brilliant detectives would be unable to fight off something as minor as a cold, when distracted completely with the baffling case of a fallen flight and a fallen friend. However, Sherlock's lack of self-awareness soon grew to be so bad that by the end of the third week of his relentless investigation, he had developed the beginnings of pneumonia.

A straying villager—although, more likely, a man sent by Mycroft—found Sherlock facedown and unconscious in the ashy snow about two kilometers from the crash site. Once the young man's health was stable again, he was immediately shipped back to England, and back to his anxious friends. Although his search had yielded a bit of suspicious evidence, it did not provide him with any closure, nor did it explain why the plan went down in the first part. Unable to be convinced otherwise even by the investigators at the crash site, Sherlock was convinced the plane's crash—and subsequently John's death—was sabotage.

* * *

Sherlock didn't like it. Being back "home."

He couldn't even consider it a home anymore—the flat at 221 B Baker Street. A home was supposed to be filled with happy, cheery people—people like John. Without the former army doctor, the flat seemed empty, frigid, and far too huge. It seemed so very different than it did no more than a month ago. Although Sherlock _knew_ why, his colder, calculating side wondered how the absence of one (relatively dwarf-like) individual could make the physical environment of the flat so different. As a result, he wished to spend very little time there.

Partially fueled by curiosity, partially formed from old habits, Sherlock found himself back in the lab after Mrs. Hudson had given him the clear that he had recovered adequately from his sickness. It was almost like old times, when Sherlock would immerse himself in simple observations. If he focused hard enough on the tiny drops of blood under his microscope, it was hard to think of other things. Another reason he had decided to come was to try to bring back his old regime. The way it was before John. On the cab ride there, he had had it already planned out. He would spend a few hours in the lab, politely (in his opinion) noting the strange behavioral changes that came over the ever-fluttering Molly, and then perhaps he would stop by Scotland Yard to see if Lestrade had any cases worth his precious time.

However, there was already a rift in the plan when his lab partner was strangely silent. He expected, almost welcomed, the young woman's cheerful, albeit ignorant comments, but today they didn't come. Oddly enough, when she had visited Sherlock while he was recovering at the flat, she seemed relatively herself—if a bit forced. But now over a month after the "incident," Molly was acting strange. Glancing up from his microscope, he watched the young woman bustle about the lab. For the first time in a long time, he studied her as he would study a suspect in a case.

_Her physical appearance and dress has not strayed from its ordinary style, although there is evidence of hastily removed lipstick, judging by the smudge of magenta just above her upper lip. Whatever bad news she knows, she didn't find out what it was until she came to work this morning. Otherwise, her outfit would be less uniform and she wouldn't have put on makeup in the first place. _Sherlock's eyes traveled slowly down to the small petri dish that Molly was examining. _Her expression is calm, suggesting she's done this before. However, her hands are shaking slightly, suggesting that there is something different about _this _particular task that has her nervous. _Feeling the unnerving stare of Sherlock, Molly lifted her head and glanced over at him questioningly. Sherlock instantly dropped his gaze back to his microscope, pretending that he hadn't been observing her at all. _She knows something that affects me,_ he noted, eyes staring blurrily down into the unfocused microscope. He must have tapped one of the focusers in his mad dash to look as if he wasn't staring at Molly. However, Sherlock couldn't muster up the energy to refocus the microscope sample. _Her expression wouldn't have changed if it didn't involve me._ In the brief second that Molly had looked in Sherlock's direction, Sherlock noticed a flash of uncontrolled panic and worry flit across her features.

"What is wrong?"

Sherlock's sudden, deep rumble nearly caused Molly to drop the petri dish she was examining. "What?"

"What's wrong, Molly?"

Molly stared at him for a moment, blinking twice. "I don't know what you mea—"

Sherlock turned away from the microscope, not even bothering to shut it off. He repeated his observation of the coroner word-for-word in a dull monotone.

"Oh," Molly's light hand strayed unconsciously to her upper lip. Suddenly the young woman sagged considerably. She glanced at the floor then back at Sherlock. "The Belgium government has finally released the bodies of those in the plane crash." The investigator instantly stiffened.

"Jo-?"

Molly shook her head and cut off the dark-haired detective mid-word. "There have been about ten passengers whose bodies have been unaccounted for or were too…distorted…to identify. John is, well, was one of them." Sherlock refused to let himself become hopeful. If John's body hadn't been discovered, then the body might not be dead after all. Molly glanced down at the petri dish in front of her. "For several passengers, the only thing that was left to identify them was their dental records." Sherlock finally looked at what was in the petri dish and nearly shuddered. Scattered about like charred sunflower seeds were little fragments of blackened teeth.

"I studied this set of teeth, and they seem to match someone of John's description. Male, middle-aged—although worn down slightly more than others at his age."

"His military career," Sherlock mumbled distantly, staring down at the little pieces of what could have been John. If Molly hadn't said what they were previously, Sherlock would have never guessed that they used to belong in someone's mouth.

"Yes…" Molly prodded one of the larger pieces of burnt remains. "There was an extra molar, but I think that may have been a fragment of one of his wisdom teeth. He probably never had to have it pulled." Molly was silent for a moment. "Sherlock, I'm sorry…but I think he really is gone."

Sherlock said nothing, but returned to his blurry microscope. _Is this closure or torture…?_ Squinting, he tried to focus on the blood splattered under the lenses, but the image was blurry. At first he thought his eyes were watering, but he then remembered that he had bumped it earlier. As he reached down and sharpened the image, a phantom feeling grabbed his stomach like ice. He quickly spun the knob backwards again, causing the clear blood cells to blur together again. Slowly he refocused on the blood sample. As the image slowly came back into sharp focus, he noticed that one particularly large blob split into two distinct forms. With the clearer image, Sherlock had an extra blood cell.

The detective jerked his head back from the eyepieces as if they had scalded him. If the petri dish hadn't been resting safely on the lab table, they probably would have fallen to the floor when Molly jumped. "Sherlock! Are you all right?"

Sherlock didn't answer at first. His light eyes traveled quickly to the petri dish and landed forcefully on the supposed wisdom tooth. "I believe I remember…" he started slowly, "John telling me once after a case—" Sherlock brought his hands up to the mess on the top of his head and pulled furiously at the ebony curls "—_think,_ Sherlock, _think._" Molly didn't dare to say a word, terrified of breaking the detective's concentration.

Suddenly, Sherlock dropped his hands and stared intently at Molly with bright, victorious eyes. "_Yes! _After a case, he needed to be treated in a hospital for a broken ankle, but refused to take painkillers," Sherlock rushed, his dilated pupils sliding back and forth. "He had said that when he was younger, he had to get his wisdom teeth taken out rather early, and he had reacted badly to the sedatives they gave him. That's how he found out he had trouble with certain concentrations of morphine." His eyes stretched even wider to a point of madness where even Molly was a bit frightened.

Without even waiting for Molly's verbal reaction, Sherlock instantly whipped out his phone, muttering to himself as he scrolled frantically through various pages. He finally found what he was looking for. Sliding the phone closed with a slightly content smile, Sherlock nodded.

"John's medical file confirmed it. He had his wisdom teeth taken out long ago."

The young woman's brow furrowed in confusion. "Wait—how did you get John's _medical file?_" Her frown deepened. "Did you just break into your broth—"

Sherlock cut her off with an inhuman grumble, and he turned around as if he were about to pace. "That means whoever's teeth you have belonged to another person—not John." Sherlock stopped midstride. He turned sharply and nailed Molly down with his intense, light olive stare. "Where's Lestrade?"

* * *

_"Lestrade!"_

Greg Lestrade jumped from his inclined position at his desk, nearly knocking over his cup of coffee with his foot. Pressing a jittering hand to his vibrating chest, he turned to see a very flustered Sherlock standing directly in front of him.

"Sher—ah—lock?!" Greg's surprised choke broke the detective's name into two parts. "I wasn't expecting you he—"

Not one for pleasantries, Sherlock cutoff the inspector with a loud grunt. "Lestrade, I need to know everything you know about what happened to Fight 693."

The silver-haired man frowned slightly. "I'm not sure if I can release the information. It's classified."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and released a very Sherlock-like snort. "Asking you, Lestrade, was merely a curtsey. If you don't give me the information now, I'll simply find what I need elsewhere."

Greg's lips pulled to one corner. Ever since hearing the news of the plane crash, he too doubted that it truly was an accident. He really wanted to help Sherlock discover what really happened, but classified is classified. Leaning forward, he glanced out the open door to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

"If I tell you what I know, will you tell us what you found in the mountains?" After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Lestrade added that "Mycroft told me where you had been."

Ignoring the second part of Lestrade's comment, Sherlock nodded once, his eyes blazing. "Deal."

Lestrade nodded as well. He glanced back out at the open door. "Sergeant Donovan," he called, causing Sherlock to flinch slightly.

A muffled "yeah" was heard somewhere around the corner.

"Will you bring me the file on Flight 693?"

There was a beat of silence, and then in a much closer voice Sally Donovan asked right outside the door if "Freak was there."

Sherlock scowled, but did not respond. The young woman slipped inside the room, closing the door behind her. She handed Lestrade the file, nodding once at the still standing Sherlock before dropping into a seat.

Before opening the file, Lestrade locked gazes with Sherlock's impatient stare. "Before I show you this, you have to tell me what you know."

Muttering impatient ramblings under his breath, Sherlock sighed. "_Fine._" He glanced around Greg's office before frowning. "Where's your map? I need a map of the Belgium-Germany border."

There was a brief moment of chaos as Sally and Lestrade scrambled to find some sort of map that would suffice. Finally one was found and unfurled in front of Sherlock.

"There," he started, pointing at a tiny fold in the map, "was where the plane went down." The other two nodded, waiting in silence for Sherlock's next "words of wisdom." "By the time I got there the next morning, the wreckage hadn't been cleared, but officials had blocked off civilians from interfering with the investigation. I managed," he paused, "to slip in, but only for a few hours before security caught me."

Lestrade suppressed a smile. Leaving Sherlock for a few hours at a crime scene guaranteed that it would soon be solved. "What did you find?"

The consulting detective's brow furrowed. "Not much, unfortunately. Most of the usable evidence was incinerated by the fire after the crash." Sherlock hesitated. "It was hard to work with the surrounding disorder around me as well; I couldn't concentrate when they were removing the casualties."

"Where you able to find anything?" Sergeant Donovan asked after another quiet pause.

"Nothing at the crash site, but I was able to gain some information from villagers who saw the plane go down." The other two leaned forward in their seats, desperate not to miss a single detail. "The closest man, who was hiking only about a kilometer and a half from the crash site, said after the initial 'boom' of the plane hitting, there was a loud, shrill sound like that of a firecracker going off."

Lestrade frowned. "Explosives? On the plane?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No, I don't think they were explosives. They would have been caught at airport security before the plane took off." Sherlock's frown deepened. "Unless, of course, it was a part of a bigger plan to blow the plane up, but somehow it went down before someone could active the explosive…" he muttered, mostly to himself.

"What else did you find?"

"Footsteps."

"Footsteps?" Lestrade's silvery eyebrow darted nearly to his hairline. "Where?"

"Coming down from a well-hidden forest path, far from the camp where the investigators were."

"Are you sure they didn't belong to members of the investigation team?"

"Could it have been a survivor?"

Sherlock's grave expression didn't change. "No. There was a set coming to and from the crash. Whoever it was who came by was already on the ground when the plane crashed. It also couldn't have been the investigating team because the footprints were smudged from the rain." He stopped for a moment to breathe. "The rain that occurred approximately two hours after the crash—and crews didn't arrive at the site for another hour and a half. I even followed the footsteps to a remote clearing where the branches above were snapped, as if a small helicopter had landed there. He or she must have known the plane would be going down in that general area. That's all I have."

Lestrade shook his head, partly in awe, and partly in disbelief. "I don't have much information about the crash, but I do have some about the plane itself." Greg glanced down at the file and flipped through several pages of pointless reviews. "This was the plane's first official flight. It was still 'new,' so it shouldn't have experienced any technical issues. However," he paused to read an interesting note with a frown, "this report says that there was a sudden loss in cabin pressure about fifteen minutes before the plane went down. Whatever it was, it affected the plane's flight. It was about then when the plane steered off course."

One of Sherlock's eyes popped open. In order to focus on every detail Lestrade mentioned, he had closed his eyes and brought his clasped index fingers to his chin. "What?"

Lestrade looked back down at the notes and repeated what he had said. "It also says that there was a bullet casing found near the site." He exchanged glances with Sergeant Donovan. "But no gun was found."

Suddenly Sherlock began to pace, blinking rapidly. "How is it possible for a bullet shell to exist without a gun?" He stopped and turned on Lestrade. Striding quickly to the inspector, he ripped the file from the man's hands and skimmed through it rapidly. "Are you sure you didn't miss anything? Overlook something?"

Lestrade rolled his eyes and shook his head. "_No._ Trust me—I've checked this several times already."

"There _must_ have been some reason for the shell to be there. It wasn't a coincidence."

"What if it was some sort of good luck charm on a necklace?" Sally spoke up for the first time in a while. Then she frowned at what she said. "Well, maybe not _good_," she murmured as an afterthought.

Sherlock froze suddenly, turning his intense gaze on Sergeant Donovan for a moment. "What if the explosion my hiker heard wasn't a part of a faulty bomb, but was the sound of bullets exploding from the heat? That would mean someone had a fully loaded gun onboard. The loss of air pressure may have been because of a stray gunshot piercing through the hull." His eyes darted back and forth spastically. "Security would have allowed a necklace or some little bauble with a bullet shell through, but they would have instantly stopped anyone who would have tried to smuggle more bullets onto the plane." He frowned, thoroughly stumped. "Why would someone want bullets, if there was no gun? And how else would a shell be present, if a gun hadn't shot the bullet first?"

All of a sudden, Sherlock's dull eyes lit up as if he were about to propose a fantastic theory. Then, a low buzzing echoed through the room. Instantly, Lestrade's and Sally's hands flew to their pockets for their phone, but both stopped after the second ring. It wasn't either of their phones ringing. The only person left in the room, Sherlock looked unsteadily down at his glowing pocket. Very few people knew his number, and very few people had reason to call him at this time. Various scenarios flashed through his head before it rang for the third time.

_It could be Molly with news about the unidentified bodies. Then again, it could be—no, it wouldn't be Lestrade. _He glanced up at to see the inspector watching him curiously. _That would be impossible. _Waiting for the fourth ring to sound, Sherlock knew he had to answer before he missed the call. Reaching down and pulling his phone from his pocket, he glanced at the name.

_John._

Suddenly everything around Sherlock seemed to turn to ice. _John_ was calling him. He furiously hit the accept button, hoping that he wasn't too late. The only sound he could hear from the phone was a loud panting sound, which he identified as his own tense, heavy breathing.

"John? _John?"_

There was a brief crackle, then a cool laugh.

_"Have you given up already, Sherlock?"_

Click.

* * *

I promise, everything will be explained in the next chapter. Bonus points to anyone who figures out what happened sooner. Sorry if this is crummy and made no sense... xD  
**Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed this story! :D**


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